Trouble logging in?If you can't remember your password or are having trouble logging in, you will have to reset your password. If you have trouble resetting your password (for example, if you lost access to the original email address), please do not start posting with a new account, as this is against the forum rules. If you create a temporary account, please contact us right away via Forum Support, and send us any information you can about your original account, such as the account name and any email address that may have been associated with it.

You might be thinking of Three Kings. Regardless, Kinzo's gold would be doubly impossible to spend directly, because it's not even his. It belongs to a foreign government, or arguably to the Japanese government. Either way, somebody would certainly ask questions about it if anybody were to try to exchange it all at once, and that would more than likely lead to someone realizing where it originated.

Which just makes not converting it all the more odd, doesn't it? I mean he could probably quietly have a few bars per year melted down and recast, then move them in another country like China or America. Presumably he preferred to keep them as a trophy of sorts, since he no longer needed the gold once he'd managed to establish his success through the loans he acquired using the gold as collateral.

So really the only reason he wouldn't do it is personal preference, which I could see. I mean, not many people can say they have a huge stack of gold in their basement. Plus he's sentimentally attached to it.

All I can really add to the current discussion is to point out that the manga, which in several places has served to visually clarify ambiguous elements, consistently presents the gold as a big-ass mountain pile. You can get a pretty decent view of it in End, in particular, and it's definitely taller than everyone's heights, even accounting for the palette. At any rate, way way larger than the pile shown in the anime.

I'm not very knowledgeable about this sort of thing, so I assume it was, uh, artistic license, for the sake of making the amount seem impossibly grand? Also, aren't there several definitions regarding the word "ton"? Maybe there was confusion..?

Also, aren't there several definitions regarding the word "ton"? Maybe there was confusion..?

There are, but none of them are all that different in actual amount, relatively (we're talking like a 10% difference). Certainly not different enough to account for the drastic differences in the depictions of the pile's size.

Well, we know why Kinzo kept the gold and didn't convert it to cash.There's no reason why he couldn't have put cardboard boxes in the middle of the pyramid to stack them and make the pile seem larger.
There's no problem if "something else" occupies most of the inner space

I imagine it's mostly just a matter of reality not matching up to expectations.

Ten tons of gold is a very large quantity. It's also an extremely valuable quantity. So you assume it must take a ton of physical space. But gold is very dense, so it doesn't take up as much as you'd figure. And Kinzo's gold is monetary gold (presumably), which is bullion, which tends to be 99% pure metal (gold used in jewelry and whatnot would not be this pure).

By contrast, Fort Knox's bullion reserve has about 4,500 metric tons and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has about 7,000. Combined, that's about 8% of all gold that has ever been mined.

Also a random fun fact, but most gold bullion ingots are very small. Kinzo's are repeatedly portayed as appearing somewhat large, especially in the anime and manga, but a 1kg gold bar is fairly small (it would basically fit on your open hand). The size of bars most people imagine for Kinzo's stash would actually be a more appropriate size for silver, which is less dense.

EDIT: Which isn't to say the RSI or whoever couldn't have melted it down and intentionally recast it in 10-100kg bars for whatever reason, since that is apparently what happened with it. A 100kg gold bar would be decently big, but I can't imagine Rosa trying to carry one for long while running.

EDIT EDIT: Also by a conservative estimate, if Kinzo's bars were 10kg, each would be worth a quarter of a million dollars or so. Although I think the price of gold was (relatively) higher in the mid-80s, it's gone down a little recently.

EDIT EDIT EDIT: Ha ha, Kinzo doesn't even have 10 tons of gold, or Battler is lowballing its value in End. He suggests it's 20 billion Yen. On 10/03/1986 the value of gold was $430/oz (yes, they recorded this that precisely), which is about 72,463.6 Yen at 1986 exchange rates. That's 276,000.64 oz, which is only 8.625 tons (or 7.654 metric tons).

I think no one among the manga authors had a clear idea about how big the 'mountain' of gold should have been. In End it's taller than Battler, in Banquet chap 11 the mountain is tall around as much as TeenagerEva on her knees... but then in another scene it seems taller than Eva herself...

I guess not even Ryukishi bothered about digging into those details. After all the point is that there's a huge amount of gold but how much space it takes is never mentioned.

The 'funny' side is that since that gold shouldn't have taken much space in Ep 7 the Italians could have hidden it in boxes or something like that instead than clearly show them to the Japanese and discharge the closed boxes.

Wikipedia has a page about goldbars, how big they should be and how much they should weight, if someone wants to have fun calculating how much space Kinzo's gold should take.

Let's assume Kinzo stacks them 12-tall (meaning 70 bars per layer) and "square" (35x35 though it isn't actually square because the ingots aren't). The pile would be 8.75m long, 2.45m wide, 0.42m tall. If we make it taller by making it 20-tall (42 bars per layer) it'd be 5.25m long, 1.47m wide, and 0.70m tall. To even break 1m in height would require the pile be about 29 bars tall, which only gives 29 bars per layer, which is 3.75m long and 1.12m wide.

If you put it on a 1m tall pedestal and displayed the pile lengthwise (so the bars are seen side-on), it would look reasonably impressive, but the pile still can't be that huge. If you square it off it could be about 2m by 2m by 1m or so. It would not tower over anybody unless it was stacked enough that it wouldn't be much more than 1m to a side, which is not that impressive.

Incidentally, each bar would be worth ¥27,898,640 or $165,550.91. The total value of the entire pile is ¥23,434,857,600 or $139,062,764.40. As of Friday, the value of the pile would be $540,633,114.

Please keep in mind that my argument is based on the manga adaptation. Excuse my paranoia regarding spoilers, even if I'm doing a scientific discussion. It is my personal belief that the stakes

Spoiler for spoiler for theory purposes:

are potentially quite capable of being used as a murder weapon

. As evidence for my argument, I bring in the concept of sectional density. In summary, sectional density is a measurement of the theoretical destructive potential of a piercing weapon. However, this formula is only ever practically used for relatively low velocity piercing weapons (such as spears, darts, etc). The formula for calculating SD is ((weight)/(diameter^2)). Diameter is measured from the widest point of the business end of the weapon in question (the pointy end). The units used for diameter are inches for future reference.

Based on the manga, the stakes appear to be about 1-1.5 feet long and weigh about 1 pound. The business end appears to have the width of a typical cross bow bolt, which is usually about 0.37 inches. Plugging these numbers in, we get (1)/(0.37^2) = (1)/(0.1369) = 7.305.

7.3 doesn't seem very large, but put into appropriate context, those numbers are horrifying. A result greater than 0.9 is

Spoiler for potential spoiler of EP5 by proxy:

readily capable of penetrating the skull of an adult bull elephant, let alone one belonging to a human

. An example weapon with this number, are some ice age era darts that have been found, nick named "mammoth killers". A heavy for example has a SD of about 2. An example of a weapon with a SD of over 7 is the WW1 "trench spike". This little terror is essentially a specialized dagger (varying from 1-1.5 feet long and being anywhere from 1-1.4 pounds) that was

Well, the stakes "aren't suited for killing" in the way that, like, a pencil isn't suited for killing. It's almost certainly possible if you put enough effort into it, but it's pretty out-of-the-way, method wise. Freak accidents aside, human skulls are known for being pretty sturdy, so it's just far easier to think they're being shoved into pre-existing wounds (pretty much confirmed as of OC) than being the result of successful normal stabbity action. Also considering that we can reasonably assume, as early as Natsuhi's death in Legend, that the culprit has a gun and is using it. If they're actually paperweights, even moreso, since they probably wouldn't even be particularly sharp at the point ... pretty interesting, though, is that they're always described as being wide, conical, sorta drill-like, and the manga follows that, but in the anime they look much more stab-worthy and sharp.

Anyway, the sectional density stuff is pretty interesting - it's the sort of thing most people are vaguely aware of as a concept (i.e, it's way easier to, say, break the skin with a syringe than with a fork), but I never knew there were formulas for it and everything. I was wondering where you're getting some of your references numbers from, though, since a cursory google search turned up results that were almost entirely about bullets, and I couldn't find anything (well, not anything really quickly...) about comparative destructive ability.

If the killer were, say, Battler, it'd be more understandable to think the stakes could be used as actual murder weapons. But the proposed killers tend not to be that strong. Plus, even if you successfully stabbed someone in a place other than the head, it would hardly cause their death in any reasonable amount of time. You'd either have to stab them multiple times or in a critical area (not always seen in cases of, say, knee gouging) or in the head, which doesn't happen in every case. And both of those are fairly difficult with a heavy object unless someone's already incapacitated, especially for a supposedly frail person.

Hell, I think you'd get more use from flipping the stake over and just using the handle as a blunt instrument.

Please keep in mind that my argument is based on the manga adaptation. Excuse my paranoia regarding spoilers, even if I'm doing a scientific discussion. It is my personal belief that the stakes

Spoiler for spoiler for theory purposes:

are potentially quite capable of being used as a murder weapon

. As evidence for my argument, I bring in the concept of sectional density. In summary, sectional density is a measurement of the theoretical destructive potential of a piercing weapon. However, this formula is only ever practically used for relatively low velocity piercing weapons (such as spears, darts, etc). The formula for calculating SD is ((weight)/(diameter^2)). Diameter is measured from the widest point of the business end of the weapon in question (the pointy end). The units used for diameter are inches for future reference.

Based on the manga, the stakes appear to be about 1-1.5 feet long and weigh about 1 pound. The business end appears to have the width of a typical cross bow bolt, which is usually about 0.37 inches. Plugging these numbers in, we get (1)/(0.37^2) = (1)/(0.1369) = 7.305.

7.3 doesn't seem very large, but put into appropriate context, those numbers are horrifying. A result greater than 0.9 is

Spoiler for potential spoiler of EP5 by proxy:

readily capable of penetrating the skull of an adult bull elephant, let alone one belonging to a human

. An example weapon with this number, are some ice age era darts that have been found, nick named "mammoth killers". A heavy for example has a SD of about 2. An example of a weapon with a SD of over 7 is the WW1 "trench spike". This little terror is essentially a specialized dagger (varying from 1-1.5 feet long and being anywhere from 1-1.4 pounds) that was

Spoiler for potential EP 5 spoiler by proxy:

designed to punch through an armored helmet and the target's skull

. Alas, they're pretty rare now a days.

I think the problems with the stakes can be that they likely aren't sharp, that they might not be so strong not to break should they used in such way (was it ever mentioned of which material they're made?) and that to get stabbed so deeply with apparently one single blow you need quite a good amount of strenght.
So maybe using the 'stake shooting gun' Battler theorized existing or if you're as strong as him, you might get a successful kill but I doubt Yasu is that strong and I'm not sure Knox would allow the existence of a stake shooting gun.

So, even if a stake might theoretically kill, I think the solution offered in Our Confession is the best one.

The stake becomes the way to hide the true way in which the victim had been killed. After all the novel says that magic involving guns is weak so it makes sense that Beato is trying to hide the fact she used guns by making it look like she used stakes.

I noticed that the anime had a nice depiction of the crest of the ingot. The impression of the OMK design is that the crest was intentionally a one winged eagle... but the anime shows almost a faded on the side opposite the wing, as if the engraving had been filed off... or not stamped correctly, as was the case in EP7.

I really think the anime is better than what everyone gives it credit for. Has anyone watched it recently?

A lot of things that were red in the VN were taken out... but I think having them made it more confusing and gave the wrong impression.

Take EP4 for example:Battler Ushiromiya has a sin. Because of this sin, many people on this island had to die. All die, none survive.
That can't be right, because in EP4, we also have a world in which Eva had survived... a world that the American release makes a point of mentioning that it is in fact not an extension of Banquet.

I think the fact that pretty much everyone who watched the anime without reading the VN thought it was a terrible disappointment compared to Higurashi is pretty good proof that it was definitely a failure.

I highly doubt you would have gotten anyone saying the Umineko VN wasn't as good as Higurashi just after EP4's release, after all.